The B12 thread...............

I've never seen any of these in this country. What did our clas 50 look like?

 

If I may be allowed a small amount of heresy, the B12/3 always lacks something for me. It's the front, you see.

Every other angle is excellent, then you get round the front and instead of that lovely Holden polished ring on the smokebox door, like a Claud or 69621, or even the short straps on the Y14, it looks like an Ivatt Atlantic (fine locos in their own right, I hasten to add). I'm sure there was an perfectly logical reason, like the door used being a stock item already, or something. It's just a bit of a shame that the only surviving GER-designed express loco doesn't have a very Great Eastern face any more.

I do like the story about Bill Harvey repeatedly finding reasons that it wasn't available for sending to Stratford for scrap just yet, though.

 

I think the preservation world holds a huge debt to the late Bill Harvey. Not just for saving the B12 but also his expertise in helping to restore a number of preserved locomotives.

Such a shame he never got to see the B12 in steam on the NNR

 

It was Edward Thompson and A.E. English's work at Stratford that led to the development of the B12/3, and agreeably the smokebox door is not very GER like. However it is a standard LNER door type and that's why it was used.

Some of the other B12s which were not rebuilt kept their GER style doors (B12/4s in scotland, for example).